Three-hundred years after the birth of Alexander Baumgarten, La
Salle University is hosting a conference devoted to his influential
Metaphysica. In addition to being the scientific foundation for all of
Baumgarten’s other writings, the Metaphysica is arguably the single most
important textbook on the topic published in the German tradition prior to
Immanuel Kant. It provides by far the richest, clearest, most concise and most
systematic presentation of a complete metaphysical system of the kind
envisioned by Leibniz and Wolff. It went through seven Latin and two German
editions over a span of twenty-seven years during which it provided the model
of philosophical instruction for thinkers such as Mendelssohn, Abbt, Kant,
Herder, Eberhard and Maimon. In particular, it formed the basis of Kant’s
lectures on metaphysics, anthropology and religion over four decades. Now, for
the first time, it is available to scholars in both German (holzboog-frommann,
2011) and English (Bloomsbury, 2013).

Confirmed Speakers:

Henry
Allison (UCSD)

Paul
Guyer (Brown University)

Gary
Hatfield (University of Pennsylvania)

Desmond
Hogan (Princeton University)

We invite
abstracts of 500-600 words for papers focusing on the Metaphysica. Possible
topics include: its sources in such philosophers as Leibniz and Wolff;
comparisons with other early modern philosophers such as Descartes or Spinoza;
interpretations of the work’s central ideas; its relation to Baumgarten's
aesthetics or moral philosophy; its relation to later thinkers such as
Mendelssohn, Kant, Herder, or Maimon.

The best
graduate student submission will receive a $200 travel stipend, courtesy of the
North American Kant Society. Please send abstracts prepared for blind review to
baumgartenatlasalle@gmail.com by 15 September, 2013, for full consideration. All
papers will be considered for inclusion in an edited volume now in
preparation.